Archive for July, 2008

It’s a big year for big trail records! While Karl starts on the AT in just four days, Peter Bakwin, on his excellent new website, takes note of a lot of other activity:

“FOUR people are separately going for speed records on the Tahoe Rim Trail over the next couple of months … and David Horton has been reporting about Jennifer Pharr’s attempt to break the women’s record on the AT as well.”

Most recently, Paul Pomeroy of Lyons, Colorado just broke Jonathan Basham’s Colorado Trail Record. (Jonathan was supported by Andrew Thompson, the current AT Record holder, and vice versa). Paul went “under the radar” by choice; almost no one knew he was even on the Trail. “I did it entirely for personal reasons”, he notes. “I didn’t want to talk it up. I wanted to do it”. Paul is well-known in local running circles as an outstanding athlete, with a sharp wit and sense of honor. Fortunately he is also gracious and shared a few words with me about his recent trip:

Yes, July 29, from 4 – 5 pm MST, this Post hosted a live online chat with Karl Meltzer.

Karl is going for the renowned Appalachian Trail Record, starting Aug 5. For very thorough background on this project, including interviews with David Horton, Flyin’ Brian, and Andrew Thompson, check out this website.

The SHR is a route, not a trail, envisioned by Yosemite guidebook author Steve Roper, and first chronicled in a 1982 book. Subtitled “Traversing Timberline Country”, it described a route that tries to stay higher than the nearby John Muir Trail while still avoiding serious technical difficulties. Crossing 33 passes, it was about 200 miles long, mostly above timberline, and included some sections of maintained trail, some obscure user paths, no shortage of tricky terrain over the high passes, and as much cross-country alpine cruising as possible. Soon out of print, Roper later brought the book back out in 1997 under the title “Sierra High Route”.

At that time, it was basically a guide for section hiking, and I doubt if 10 people had ever thru-hiked it. Last year Backpacker Magazine Editor Steve Howe thru-hiked it in a month, doing a daily podcast via sat phone, highlighted by his arduous off-trail experience. Kevin Sawchuck, an expert backpacker and former record-holder on the JMT, called it “My favorite backpack trip of all time.” I suspect the popularity of this route is about to take a significant upswing.